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Sales growth requires a comprehensive plan.
A Small Business Administration (SBA) Division President for a Regional Bank in Tennessee had a sales problem. He looked out across his 12 SBA Business Development Officers (BDOs) and saw two consistently high performers, two that were not making the cut and eight that produced unpredictable and middling results. Was there a way to increase sales across the board?
The resulting action for growth, as determined by Kasvaa principal, Stephen Lehtonen was to optimize four key areas of the business.
First, was the talent pipeline for the bank’s SBA division including how the bank recruited, selected, supported and evaluated its loan officers.
The second key area was the bank’s, divisional marketing strategy. As a “lesser known” brand, they had to differentiate themselves from the Bank of Americas and the Wells Fargo of the world. This required intentionally and carefully listening to their customers and their community.
Next, the company and the loan officers needed to be more strategic in where they hunted. A significant percentage of the company loan applications were returned by the Credit Manager for being outside the scope of lending for the bank. This was a drastic waste of time and money by the bank. They were simply fishing in the wrong ponds.
Finally, Lehtonen was able to argue for increased adoption of technology and products to make it easier for customers to file loans with the banks.
The result was a 12.5% year over year increase in SBA loan assets after working with Lehtonen and team.
